Among the new developments rising on the Astoria waterfront is 34-46 Vernon Boulevard, two rental towers on the East River. The photograph was taken from Roosevelt Island.CreditCreditChang W. Lee/The New York Times

Discovering the Lost Coast of Queens

The waterfront of Astoria, Queens, has been quiet for decades, but activity is finally picking up.

Among the new developments rising on the Astoria waterfront is 34-46 Vernon Boulevard, two rental towers on the East River. The photograph was taken from Roosevelt Island.CreditCreditChang W. Lee/The New York Times

A wave, of the development kind, finally seems to be forming along the edge of Queens where Astoria meets the East River.

Hoping to turn a long-isolated shoreline with panoramic views of Manhattan into a gold coast, developers are at work on a batch of high-end rental complexes that will add pools and saunas, schools and supermarkets along a stretch that currently has barbed wire, warehouses and power plants.

Locally focused firms, like AKI Development, which opened its 28-unit Graffiti House in the area in December, are planting flags alongside major builders from elsewhere, like the Durst Organization, which is building a 20-story high-rise with a supermarket that will loom over the Astoria Houses, the sprawling public housing complex that anchors the neighborhood.

At the same time, the city is investing in quality-of-life upgrades, including ferry service for the subway-starved neighborhood, which runs from about 36th Avenue to 20th Avenue, west of 21st Street.

“I’m a little surprised it’s been so untouched until now,” said Natassa Contini, 36, who in 2013 moved from East Harlem to a one-bedroom rental in a converted piano factory, which she shares with a pit bull and a Chihuahua.

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A rendering of 34-46 Vernon Boulevard, a 404-unit rental complex on the river by the Alma Realty Corp. The brick doorman complex will have 80 studios, 264 one-bedrooms and 60 two-bedrooms, all of which will have washers and dryers.CreditAlma Realty Corp.

The miniboom in rentals makes sense, brokers say. Condo buyers might be skittish about an untested market, they say, so for now, developers will dip in just their toes, with rentals.

Of the new buildings on the waterfront, the most colorful is probably AKI’s seven-story Graffiti House, at 11-07 Welling Court, near where Astoria Boulevard peters out.

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A penthouse at Graffiti House has a view over the East River of Manhattan.CreditChang W. Lee/The New York Times

Covering an exterior wall of the building, which has 28 one-bedroom units and a pergola-topped common roof, is a mural with Mondrian-like panels of blue, red and black by Tony Sjoman, a.k.a Rubin.

Graffiti-style murals of birds, mermaids and a man with dreadlocks jazz up the walls around a 14-space parking lot. Painters also let loose inside the building’s elevator shaft, which is visible courtesy of a peek-a-boo window in the elevator cab. Bright designs flash past during a ride.

Brett Harris, a founding principal of AKI, said the building’s style and name honor the area’s legacy of street art. Every summer, with the permission of landlords, artists spray-paint garage doors and walls in the neighborhood, as part of an event called the Welling Court Mural Project.

Begun in 2009 with about 40 artists, the event expects to attract more than 150 in June, said Garrison Buxton, a founder of Ad Hoc Art, the organizer of the event, which contributed several murals that face Graffiti House from across the street.

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Graffiti House, 28 one-bedroom units at 11-07 Welling Court in Astoria, is a project of AKI Development.CreditChang W. Lee/The New York Times

Although several rentals and a handful of condos have popped up in the area, parts of which are also called Old Astoria Village, in the last decade, they have been no-frills affairs, said Mr. Harris of AKI. Graffiti House will feature touches one might associate with luxury condos in Manhattan, like heated floors, spice-rack drawers and cabinet-faced refrigerators. Priced from $2,500 a month for a lower-floor unit to about $5,000 for a penthouse, Graffiti House had leased 24 of its 28 units by Jan. 20, after about two months of marketing.

The company has six other active development sites west of 21st Street, including former ice cream and candle factories. “Everything is cascading this way,” Mr. Harris said.

If the area, with its artsy vibe and proximity to the East River, does become the next Williamsburg, Brooklyn, as some developers and brokers hope, it might be a feather in the cap of the Alma Realty Corp. of Queens, a family-run firm that has invested in the area for decades.

Today, Alma is putting the finishing touches on an unnamed 404-unit rental complex on the river at 34-46 Vernon Boulevard, in an area sometimes called Ravenswood. Sitting amid low-slung industrial structures, Alma’s 18-story rental seems to loom as high as the red-and-white striped smokestacks of a nearby power plant.

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Through a window in the elevator at Graffiti House, passengers can see artwork in the elevator shaft, a nod to the area’s legacy of street art.CreditChang W. Lee/The New York Times

The brick doorman complex will have 80 studios, 264 one-bedrooms and 60 two-bedrooms, all with washers and dryers, and many with balconies, said Sophia Valiotis, Alma’s chief operating officer.

At Alma’s new building, tenants will avail themselves of a gym, a sauna and an outdoor swimming pool close to the riverbank, which will also gain a public promenade reached by a path from Vernon Boulevard. “Astoria has seen a dramatic change,” Ms. Valiotis said.

Leasing at the building, which broke ground in 2014 on a site where marble slabs were once stored, will begin this fall, Ms. Valiotis said, adding that rents have not yet been set.

Alma’s bid to make over another key section of the waterfront, though, has hit some choppy waters. Targeted for a cove near the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, the project, called Astoria Cove, is a 2.2-million-square-foot mixed-use undertaking with 1,700 apartments, stores and a public school.

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A rendering of the completed building at Halletts Point.CreditDattner Architects

Despite demolition activity at the site, Alma, which is part of a team developing the project, can’t begin construction without a 421a property tax abatement, said Jason Fink, an Alma spokesman. The 421a program, which exempts developers from some property taxes in exchange for building affordable rental housing and which has been criticized as a giveaway to the real estate industry, expired last winter. A revised version of 421a from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is now before the state’s legislature.

The end of the 421a program has also hobbled Hallets Point, a mega-development on the waterfront from Durst. Wrapping the tip of a peninsula, Hallets Point is planned as a 2.4-million-square-foot mini-city, with 2,200 apartments across seven buildings, as well as stores, parks and a public school. But most of the project is becalmed.

Durst does have a 20-story rental under construction there, however, and it will be a game changer when it introduces 324 market-rate and 81 affordable units to the area. The brick-and-glass facades of the two-towered building, at 01-02 26th Avenue at First Street, will stand in gleaming contrast to the drab blocks surrounding it.

Durst’s tower, to open in 2018, will feature a 21,500-square-foot supermarket, said Jordan Barowitz, a Durst spokesman. In a neighborhood with a smattering of stores, a large market will be a welcome change, said Claudia Coger, 81, the president of the tenants association at Astoria Houses.

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The old and the new in Astoria. The tall building is East River Tower, a condo at 11-24 31st Avenue.CreditChang W. Lee/The New York Times

Some of her neighbors worry that the Durst project will affect rents in their quiet part of the city, said Ms. Coger, who has lived at Astoria Houses for 62 years.

“We were a well-kept secret,” said Ms. Coger, who fishes for striped bass in the river. “But now, everybody wants a piece of action.”

The area was rezoned in 2010, covering 238 blocks, including most of the waterfront. The zoning on some side streets was changed to prevent the ungainly high-rises of an earlier era. But the rezoning also boosted slightly the allowable size of apartment buildings along the river on Vernon Boulevard. And, to help prevent residents from being uprooted, it created incentives for the creation of affordable housing.

The list of influential developers coming ashore in Astoria should also include the Related Companies, which last fall spent $115 million to purchase Marine Terrace, a 444-unit Section 8 housing complex that will be added to its affordable portfolio. Related also will construct two structures, with 53 apartments, for veterans.

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The area’s new ferry dock will be to the right of the beach, its kayak dock to the left. Manhattan is in the distance.CreditChang W. Lee/The New York Times

The Excel Development Company is at work on its first Astoria project, Vernon Tower, a 103-unit, eight-story rental at 31-42 Vernon Boulevard. When leasing begins this spring, studios will start at around $1,900 a month, said Michael Heletz, Excel’s founding principal.

One of the disadvantages of the neighborhood is that the nearest subway, the N and W line, can be a 15-minute walk away.

But this summer, a ferry service will debut, bringing water transport to the area for the first time since the 1930s, said Bob Singleton of the Greater Astoria Historical Society. The dock for Citywide Ferry will be near the Astoria Houses, said Stephanie Báez, a spokeswoman for the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

Boats will run from Astoria to Manhattan, taking 22 minutes to East 34th Street and 38 minutes to the financial district, she said.

The city will also construct a dock for kayakers, a $5 million project. Citi Bike is scouting locations, another sign of change.

For open space, there’s the Socrates Sculpture Park, a 4.5-acre sculpture-dotted lawn carved from a dump in the 1980s. When the tide goes out, some residents relax on the skinny beach along Vernon by 31st Avenue.

For all the promise of future crowds, some businesses have shut their doors. The Russian restaurant Bear, on 31st Avenue near 12th Street, closed last spring after five years, and Astor Bake Shop, on Astoria Boulevard, had a similar run.

Jonathan Ellis, 70, of Portland, Ore., lived on Welling Court from 2001 to 2015 and helped create the Welling Court Mural Project. In the beginning, Mr. Ellis said, “It was a bit scary,” with drugs, crime and blight. For most of his time in New York, the area did not seem to share in the rebound experienced by the rest of the city, he said.

The mural project, said Mr. Ellis, an artist, was a way to spiff up the area without gentrifying it.

“Our idea had nothing to do with creating an environment that was safe for developers,” said Mr. Ellis, who bought a four-level two-family rowhouse for $219,000 in 2001 and, 14 years later, sold it for $875,000. “But progress being what it is, that’s what happened.”